What if the gold standard is not an antique but, rather, a “timeless classic” (as termed in a speech by Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann in September 2012)?  High tech guru George Gilder deploys cutting-edge science to show why this is so, based on Shannon information theory. Gilder’s analysis is neither eccentric nor anomalous.

The intellectual pedigree of the classical gold standard runs through two of the greatest scientists in history: Copernicus and Newton. Nicolas Copernicus, in his Essay on the Minting of Money eloquently lays out the scientific foundations of the classical gold standard. (Full disclosure, I served as co-editor of a modern translation, by classicist Gerald Malsbary, published by Laissez Faire Books and recently republished by Cognella as part of a compilation of source documents in classical economics, The Monetary Foundations of the Macroeconomy Volume 1 edited by Thomas Rustici, James Caton, Dima Shamoun, and Ted Shamoun).

Read the article “ANALYSIS: High Tech Guru George Gilder Demolishes a Critical Myth About the Gold Standard” on forbes.com.